The Aging
They could no longer keep more time
in their bones, so they ridged them
on their skin: a farmland of memories
and me in the middle, watching
the vastness disappear behind my back.
Oh, how we enjoyed those days
until they were no more!
We have licked our hands to the bone,
thinking, Were those not the best,
fastest days? When we could control
everything with a joystick and some
invisible reins before we outgrew ourselves,
forgetting how to live. And every night
is a feast, breaking bread with solitude
and tapping my blood into wine.
It’s no longer a poem. It is just a mantra
to keep us here and here was a place
once called home. Everything I know
is of the past. I’m in the plan,
but I do not know if I’m in the future.
Everything is scribbled on their wrinkled faces
dissolving into a mirror, dissolving into dust
and dissolving into air and I hope
these few loved ones can still breathe me here.
© Oladejo Abdullah Feranmi
Oladejo Abdullah Feranmi is a writer, haikuist, and veterinary medicine student from Nigeria. A Thomas Dylan Shortlist and a Pushcart nominee, he reads submissions for Sea Glass literary magazine and edits for the Incognito Press. His works are published in Gone Lawn, Hooligan Magazine, and more. He tweets from @tinybecomings
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